In 2002, Loveland resident Craig DeMartino was climbing with a friend at Lumpy Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park when a terrible accident occurred and he plunged roughly 110 feet onto the rocks below.

The accident forever changed DeMartino's life, who suffered exploded vertebrae and required the amputation of his leg below the knee. But it was also the start of a new journey as he eventually returned to climbing, becoming the first to lead a team of adaptive climbers up Yosemite's El Capitan, among other adaptive climbing achievements.

The remarkable life DeMartino has lived since his fall was a source of fascination for Boulder filmmaker Cameron Maier, who spent two years with his camera trained on DeMartino to document the story. The resulting short film, "Craig's Reaction," will make its Loveland debut Saturday at the Rialto Theater, where it will be one of 20 documentary shorts screening during a touring version of Telluride's Mountainfilm film festival.

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"It's a great story about a local hero and the power of the human spirit," said Maier, who will be participating in a Q&A about the film at the festival. "If you are going through a rough time — or a little too in your own head — it's a great way to gain perspective."

Such inspiring and empowering themes are the focus of the festival, which showcases documentaries about outdoor issues and stories in order to "inspire audiences to create a better world."

Zipline surfers line surf a 1,950-foot zipline in the Vercos Mountains in France in "Surf the Line." (Courtesy Mountainfilm)

"I have a hard time describing it because [Mountainfilm] is such a unique thing and until you see these films you just don't get how amazing they are," said Kerry Helke, Loveland special events and outdoor recreation coordinator, who has been involved with the festival for several years. "It's really about sharing the outdoors with people in a way that they've maybe never experienced it."

The event is divided into matinee and evening sessions, which will each require separate tickets and screen 10 different short films. Helke said the matinee session, which begins at 2 p.m., will be more family-friendly event, featuring several films focused on kids.

The evening session, meanwhile, will be a little longer and will have a cash bar. Many of the evening films will focus on older adults.

Both sessions, however, will offer a slate of films featuring a varied selection of outdoor activities and stories.

In promoting the festival, Helke has been careful to emphasize that the films are about more than adventure.

"It's not just adrenaline, it's not Warren Miller and people racing downhill, they are about people," she said.

For example, one of Helke's favorite films, "A New View Of the Moon," is not about an extreme activity, but rather it follows a Los Angeles man who sets up a telescope so passersby can look at the moon."

"It's really unique to see their reactions to seeing the moon in a way they haven't before," she said. "Everyone comes up and is like, 'no way!'"

The festival also provides an opportunity to see films by rising documentary filmmakers as they experiment with new approaches. Maier, for example, used stop-motion animation.

"I used that to recreate Craig's accident," Maier said. "It was all done with paper cut-outs and that was a really cool process to learn.

The films are also heavy on Colorado stories like DeMartino's, Helke said, and other films that follow a family of trailrunners from Silverton and another film about a 99-year-old radio DJ in Paonia.

"It's really cool that even though this is a worldwide film festival, a lot of it is so local and a lot of these interesting people and things actually are from here," Helke said.

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